Predicting Empathic Ability and Post-Traumatic Growth Among Anxiously Attached Therapists: A Moderated Mediation Examining the Role of Self-Differentiation
Faculty Mentor
Lisa Wallner Samstag
Major/Area of Research
Empathy, Therapists in Training, Anxious Attachment
Description
The proposed study examined empathy via emotion identification, anxious attachment, self-differentiation, and post-traumatic growth, in therapists-in-training to understand if self-differentiation explains the relationship between anxious attachment and empa- thy, and to assess if post-traumatic growth strengthened this relationship. A sample of 94 therapists-in-training between, ages 21 to 68 years, who self-reported relational trauma, were recruited via academic and university related listservs online. The online Qualtrics survey included: Experiences in Close Relationships scale (ECR-R; Fraley et al., 2000), Differentiation of Self Inventory—Short Form (DSI-SF; Drake et al., 2015), Revised Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET-R; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), and the Post Traumatic Growth Index (Garcia da Silvia, 2018; Tedeschi, 1996).
To evaluate the hypotheses, a moderated mediation analysis was conducted, regressing Empathic Ability, Self-Differentiation, and Post Traumatic Growth on Anxious Attachment. Analysis of Hypothesis 1 found a relationship in the opposite direction to what was expected b = 0.39, 95% CI [0.8908, 0.0998], p = 0.12, such that when therapists-in-training self-reported Anxious Attachment was high, Empathic Ability through emotion identification of combined neutral- and negative-valanced scores was found to be low. A medium effect size was found (β = -.60) and suggested the test was under- powered. Self-Differentiation was not found to mediate the relationship between Anxious Attachment and Empathic Ability and Post Traumatic Growth was not found to moderate the relationships between Self-Differentiation and Empathic Ability b = - 0.003, 95% CI [-0.0255, 0.0186], p = 0.75. The small effect size (β = .31) suggests that when Self-Differentiation is high, Post-Traumatic-Growth does not strengthen Empathic Ability. Post-hoc analyses demonstrated a similarly negative relationship between Empathic Ability and Anxious Attachment for both negative and neutral valanced emotion identification assessed separately, b = 0.39, 95% CI [0.8908, 0.0998], p = 0.12. The findings were inconsistent with the literature and suggests more research needs to be done on understanding how therapists with early relational trauma heal, how they are characterized, and their effectiveness.
Predicting Empathic Ability and Post-Traumatic Growth Among Anxiously Attached Therapists: A Moderated Mediation Examining the Role of Self-Differentiation
The proposed study examined empathy via emotion identification, anxious attachment, self-differentiation, and post-traumatic growth, in therapists-in-training to understand if self-differentiation explains the relationship between anxious attachment and empa- thy, and to assess if post-traumatic growth strengthened this relationship. A sample of 94 therapists-in-training between, ages 21 to 68 years, who self-reported relational trauma, were recruited via academic and university related listservs online. The online Qualtrics survey included: Experiences in Close Relationships scale (ECR-R; Fraley et al., 2000), Differentiation of Self Inventory—Short Form (DSI-SF; Drake et al., 2015), Revised Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET-R; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), and the Post Traumatic Growth Index (Garcia da Silvia, 2018; Tedeschi, 1996).
To evaluate the hypotheses, a moderated mediation analysis was conducted, regressing Empathic Ability, Self-Differentiation, and Post Traumatic Growth on Anxious Attachment. Analysis of Hypothesis 1 found a relationship in the opposite direction to what was expected b = 0.39, 95% CI [0.8908, 0.0998], p = 0.12, such that when therapists-in-training self-reported Anxious Attachment was high, Empathic Ability through emotion identification of combined neutral- and negative-valanced scores was found to be low. A medium effect size was found (β = -.60) and suggested the test was under- powered. Self-Differentiation was not found to mediate the relationship between Anxious Attachment and Empathic Ability and Post Traumatic Growth was not found to moderate the relationships between Self-Differentiation and Empathic Ability b = - 0.003, 95% CI [-0.0255, 0.0186], p = 0.75. The small effect size (β = .31) suggests that when Self-Differentiation is high, Post-Traumatic-Growth does not strengthen Empathic Ability. Post-hoc analyses demonstrated a similarly negative relationship between Empathic Ability and Anxious Attachment for both negative and neutral valanced emotion identification assessed separately, b = 0.39, 95% CI [0.8908, 0.0998], p = 0.12. The findings were inconsistent with the literature and suggests more research needs to be done on understanding how therapists with early relational trauma heal, how they are characterized, and their effectiveness.